Seventh Avenue update draws crowd

Community turns out to hear findings from UNC study

Published: Wednesday, April 2, 2014 at 11:37 p.m.

Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2014 at 11:37 p.m.

A standing-room-only crowd filled the meeting room inside the Historic Train Depot on Maple Street Wednesday night to hear updates on an ongoing study that may shape the future of Seventh Avenue.

The UNC School of Government’s Development Finance Initiative began studying the Hendersonville district in February, looking at tax records and building permits to gauge the market.

Will Lambe, director of the DFI Community and Economic Development Program, presented their initial findings Wednesday night. The figures showed “a pretty big gap in property valuation” between their study area and the city’s downtown municipal service district along Main Street.

Properties were valued in the Seventh Avenue study district at about $32 per square foot, on average, compared to the downtown MSD’s $74 per square foot. Other figures put the Seventh Avenue district on the low end for rental prices and the high end for vacancies, and showed a nearly 21 percent gap between sales prices per square foot among the two downtown districts.

But the figures also reflected a future growth in demand for residential and commercial properties in the city… a demand that could be met, in part, with improvements to the Historic Seventh Avenue District.

“We’re at the point in this project where we’re trying to understand the market dynamics, the market realities of this district in the city of Hendersonville, in the city of Hendersonville at-large and in the region,” Lambe said. “The result, we hope, from this work is expected to come in the next 30 to 60 days.”

Lambe said that they plan to look at the HSAD as it currently is and study its health in terms of property values, property conditions and the market dynamics that exist in the city. Then, he said, they’ll recommend the best approach the city could take with its partners to encourage more private investment in the district, but he needs the public’s help.

“We can do the number crunching and we can apply the legal and financial frameworks to a particular area and make a recommendation one way or the other, but unless that analysis is grounded in what you guys want to see, what you all, who live and work here, want to see happen, we’re missing the mark,” he said.

Carson Calton, owner of City Tire Service at 706 Seventh Ave. E., said that when he and other stakeholders first started looking at ways to bring new life to the district, they recognized Seventh Avenue has its own niche. The avenue is different from Main Street.

“At that time, I think what we were looking for is maybe aesthetically to benefit like Main Street has, an attractive place where people want to come down and visit or shop or whatever,” he said. “Could there be things to tie us in aesthetically with Main Street to make it easy to make that connection? Absolutely, but trying to be the same type of district they are, at least initially, that’s not where we were talking about heading.”

Matthew Hickman, owner of Underground Baking Co., recommended the study group look at small steps that might lead to bigger strides, like improving facades and finding a creative way to deal with loiterers.

He said they have a local foods district right now and that his customers are excited to cross the street and get fresh produce, meats, home-brewed beer or soul food from local vendors.

“I think Seventh Avenue definitely has its own personality and there’s a way to use that to create a different dynamic where maybe there’s an edgier vibe down here. Maybe we go more with local foods or artists or craftsmen,” he said. “It’s a great place to come but it’s a very different vibe than Main Street… distinct in its own right.”

“We live in the neighborhood and, to me, when we have visitors, we bring them down here to see the food stores. They just love it, to walk in and have people know your first name and have fresh produce,” said Suzanne Hale.

Her husband, Hunter Hale, added that one of the great assets of the district is its “existing stock of buildings because like Main Street, funky buildings are a real draw. On the other hand, I understand that a lot of buildings are in very bad condition, so I think one of the first things that needs to be studied is the building stock and assess them to sort of separate the sheep from the goats,” he said.

In regard to financing, he encouraged the group to look at how some of Asheville’s historic buildings were saved by historic preservation trusts decades ago. The trusts “were put together by private people who were essentially interested in the architecture and the history of the area,” he said. “I would encourage you to explore that model as perhaps one part of how some seed money could be raised to effectively reintroduce some of these buildings to commercially-viable condition.”

Some property owners face a “Catch-22” in renovating buildings without enough revenue from rent to fund it. Lambe said there are historic tax credits that would be available for projects in this district.

Other residents complained of the public stigma surrounding the district, the lack of signage pointing people to the district and about people seeking day labor who regularly loiter around the depot.

“Why can’t they be relocated to another area where it’s not going to affect any businesses?” one man asked.

The Rev. Tim Jones, operations director of the Hendersonville Rescue Mission, said they opened a new day center on Seventh Avenue a few weeks ago to welcome people with nowhere to go in the morning.

“Most of the time when people call us and ask, ‘are those your folks?’, I don’t know the folks who come down here. They’re not the folks staying here,” he said. “Most of them drive or ride bicycles and stand down here… One of the things we’ve done to try to help eliminate that is we’ve opened a day center down the street where folks can come in and use the phone or use the restroom. The idea is to get them off the street and stop standing here… If we could get folks thinking in terms of coming there to pick people up, I think that would be a lot better than just having guys standing around here.”

“Maybe we need to change the paradigm,” Suzanne Hale said. “It sounds like for years, people have been looking at this area as a problem that needs to be solved.”

With the anchor of businesses and historic buildings that the district already has, she said, “it seems to me that there’s a real opportunity for another area that would complement downtown, be good for the tourism industry, be good for the economy of Hendersonville. It’s an opportunity to create jobs and maybe if we started looking at it as an opportunity, we would come up with different solutions.”

<p>A standing-room-only crowd filled the meeting room inside the Historic Train Depot on Maple Street Wednesday night to hear updates on an ongoing study that may shape the future of Seventh Avenue.</p><p>The UNC School of Government's Development Finance Initiative began studying the Hendersonville district in February, looking at tax records and building permits to gauge the market.</p><p>Will Lambe, director of the DFI Community and Economic Development Program, presented their initial findings Wednesday night. The figures showed “a pretty big gap in property valuation” between their study area and the city's downtown municipal service district along Main Street.</p><p>Properties were valued in the Seventh Avenue study district at about $32 per square foot, on average, compared to the downtown MSD's $74 per square foot. Other figures put the Seventh Avenue district on the low end for rental prices and the high end for vacancies, and showed a nearly 21 percent gap between sales prices per square foot among the two downtown districts.</p><p>But the figures also reflected a future growth in demand for residential and commercial properties in the city… a demand that could be met, in part, with improvements to the Historic Seventh Avenue District.</p><p>“We're at the point in this project where we're trying to understand the market dynamics, the market realities of this district in the city of Hendersonville, in the city of Hendersonville at-large and in the region,” Lambe said. “The result, we hope, from this work is expected to come in the next 30 to 60 days.”</p><p>Lambe said that they plan to look at the HSAD as it currently is and study its health in terms of property values, property conditions and the market dynamics that exist in the city. Then, he said, they'll recommend the best approach the city could take with its partners to encourage more private investment in the district, but he needs the public's help.</p><p>“We can do the number crunching and we can apply the legal and financial frameworks to a particular area and make a recommendation one way or the other, but unless that analysis is grounded in what you guys want to see, what you all, who live and work here, want to see happen, we're missing the mark,” he said.</p><p>Carson Calton, owner of City Tire Service at 706 Seventh Ave. E., said that when he and other stakeholders first started looking at ways to bring new life to the district, they recognized Seventh Avenue has its own niche. The avenue is different from Main Street.</p><p>“At that time, I think what we were looking for is maybe aesthetically to benefit like Main Street has, an attractive place where people want to come down and visit or shop or whatever,” he said. “Could there be things to tie us in aesthetically with Main Street to make it easy to make that connection? Absolutely, but trying to be the same type of district they are, at least initially, that's not where we were talking about heading.”</p><p>Matthew Hickman, owner of Underground Baking Co., recommended the study group look at small steps that might lead to bigger strides, like improving facades and finding a creative way to deal with loiterers.</p><p>He said they have a local foods district right now and that his customers are excited to cross the street and get fresh produce, meats, home-brewed beer or soul food from local vendors.</p><p>“I think Seventh Avenue definitely has its own personality and there's a way to use that to create a different dynamic where maybe there's an edgier vibe down here. Maybe we go more with local foods or artists or craftsmen,” he said. “It's a great place to come but it's a very different vibe than Main Street… distinct in its own right.”</p><p>“We live in the neighborhood and, to me, when we have visitors, we bring them down here to see the food stores. They just love it, to walk in and have people know your first name and have fresh produce,” said Suzanne Hale.</p><p>Her husband, Hunter Hale, added that one of the great assets of the district is its “existing stock of buildings because like Main Street, funky buildings are a real draw. On the other hand, I understand that a lot of buildings are in very bad condition, so I think one of the first things that needs to be studied is the building stock and assess them to sort of separate the sheep from the goats,” he said.</p><p>In regard to financing, he encouraged the group to look at how some of Asheville's historic buildings were saved by historic preservation trusts decades ago. The trusts “were put together by private people who were essentially interested in the architecture and the history of the area,” he said. “I would encourage you to explore that model as perhaps one part of how some seed money could be raised to effectively reintroduce some of these buildings to commercially-viable condition.”</p><p>Some property owners face a “Catch-22” in renovating buildings without enough revenue from rent to fund it. Lambe said there are historic tax credits that would be available for projects in this district.</p><p>Other residents complained of the public stigma surrounding the district, the lack of signage pointing people to the district and about people seeking day labor who regularly loiter around the depot.</p><p>“Why can't they be relocated to another area where it's not going to affect any businesses?” one man asked.</p><p>The Rev. Tim Jones, operations director of the Hendersonville Rescue Mission, said they opened a new day center on Seventh Avenue a few weeks ago to welcome people with nowhere to go in the morning.</p><p>“Most of the time when people call us and ask, 'are those your folks?', I don't know the folks who come down here. They're not the folks staying here,” he said. “Most of them drive or ride bicycles and stand down here… One of the things we've done to try to help eliminate that is we've opened a day center down the street where folks can come in and use the phone or use the restroom. The idea is to get them off the street and stop standing here… If we could get folks thinking in terms of coming there to pick people up, I think that would be a lot better than just having guys standing around here.”</p><p>“Maybe we need to change the paradigm,” Suzanne Hale said. “It sounds like for years, people have been looking at this area as a problem that needs to be solved.”</p><p>With the anchor of businesses and historic buildings that the district already has, she said, “it seems to me that there's a real opportunity for another area that would complement downtown, be good for the tourism industry, be good for the economy of Hendersonville. It's an opportunity to create jobs and maybe if we started looking at it as an opportunity, we would come up with different solutions.”</p><p>Reach Weaver at Emily.weaver@blueridgenow.com or 828-694-7867.</p>